| Collection
Introduction | Selling Manhattan, 1987
The poem is about longing and finding out the cause of this longing and homesickness |
| Subject (2) | Lyric of inner talk
Collective persona 'we' - universal experience (the feelings of longing for love, perfection and belonging are shared by everyone) |
| Form (2) | Five stanzas of six, five, four, three, three lines each
The form is suggestive of time running out as life comes to an end
It resembles an interior monologue |
| Theme (3) | Longing for perfection and acceptance
It is human nature to associate with a community and want to be accepted with that community
There is a metaphysical longing to feel at home
Imperfection is seen as failure - we strive for perfection, yet never reach it (intrinsic want of human beings) |
| Motifs (5) | "pining for first love"
"dying of homesickness"
"rearranging the rooms we end up living in"
"What country do we come from?"
"why is our love imperfect?" |
| Diction; Language
Lexical field
Epistrophe
Antithesis
Economy on words | Everyday, colloquial
Music - 'first sound', 'wordless languages'; associated with pleasure and delight
'light' - symbolic of first home, birth; from our first moments on earth, we long to be loved
'where the sun burns/where we have night' - confusion in searching for answers
'for when, where, what' - ambiguity in all aspects of life |
| Imagery and Symbolism; Synaesthetic (4) | "arrangement of light"; illumination in both a literal and metaphorical sense
- light is a way of perceiving and understanding one's own character and the world around them
"where the sun burns"; warmth in literal sense and in family life
"dust"; associational with 'ashes' and end of life
"echo"; perfection is simply an illusion that is impossible to reach |
| Rhythm | Unequal, enjambed lines mimic the random but deep thoughts of the persona |
| Rhyme | Lack of regular rhyme adds to the confusion and stream of consciousness within the poem |
| Tone (2)
Mood (2) | Reflective, meditative
Emotional, slightly elegiac (lack of hope)
- overarching feeling is one of pessimism and negation |
| Conclusion | Duffy explores human emotion - both joy and pain
Invites us to contemplate certain philosophies surrounding human nature
By the end, homesickness has become hopelessness
Life is not perfect - betrayal of happiness |
